"I had a nice drugstore," Mr. Rebeck said. "It smelled. I mean, it was clean but it smelled nice. Like gunpowder and cinnamon, with a little chocolate, maybe. I had a bell that rang when somebody opened the door, and it rang for whatever a person needed, whether it was on his prescription or not. And I had a pair of scales that could weigh a man's heart. I didn't have a soda fountain, but I had a jar of candy to give the children when they came in to buy cough syrup or razor blades. Coltsfoot candy, they called it. I don't know why. It came in long yellow sticks. I don't think they sell it any more. I had everything any other druggist in New York had, and a little wolfbane besides."
A small breeze had sprung up, and Mr. Rebeck pulled his bathrobe closer around him and put his hands in the pockets.
"Once a man asked me to make a love potion for him. He was a good man, but very ugly, with a scarred face. He was a fighter, I think, because of his ears, and because he used to come in and have coffee with me and talk about boxing. There was a girl who used to come in and sit with us sometimes. She looked a little like you, Laura, only her hair was blond. A very smart girl. The man asked me to make up something to make her love him. He was ashamed of his face, you see, and he thought it would be so easy for me to do, like whipping up a malted. I couldn't do it, of course, not really, because it's illegal, and I didn't know how anyway. But I told him I would, only it wouldn't make her aggressive, just receptive. He'd still have to do the asking, face or no face."
He smiled, thinking about it. "She was a very nice girl, and I think she loved him anyway. But after that, everybody started to come in, asking for love potions and horoscopes and lucky charms and wanting to know what their dreams meant. People are unhappy, you know, and they'll try anything to change their luck. They acted as if I were a witch or a tame warlock, pleading with me to make their children well or make their husbands quit drinking. I told them I couldn't do it, that I wasn't a magician, and some wept and some cursed me. Those were very sad curses, without much strength. So I made a very big mistake. I said I would try.
"I thought, I am a druggist. I try to help sick people. These people are sick also, in a different way. Perhaps I could help them in a different way. And I tried, which was wrong, because there isn't any magician in the world. But they needed me, I thought, and a man must be needed. So I ground up harmless little herbs and told them to sprinkle them in their food, and I told them to sleep with little bags of flour under their pillows and their dreams would be good. I was a witch doctor, a witch doctor in New York. I hadn't meant to be, but I was. And, to make matters worse, I wasn't a very good witch doctor. Sometimes I was lucky, sometimes I guessed right and the child got well, or the number was the right one. But not very often. The people who didn't believe in all this mumbo-jumbo stopped coming, and the people who did believe stopped coming because it wasn't very effective mumbo-jumbo."
Mr. Rebeck's hands twisted the belt of the robe around and around each other, but he was still smiling faintly. "Only the really dedicated crackpots remained, and a druggist is probably the one man in the world who can't find some use for them. But I served them because they were lonely and they believed in me. I was their prophet, a prophet fallen on evil days, perhaps, but not without honor. So I felt a little important sometimes."
He began to laugh quietly, in genuine amusement, smoothing his thin hair with a brown hand. "I knew something was going to happen sooner or later. What I was doing was illegal for anybody, and twice as criminal for a druggist. If a new customer came into the store— which did happen every once in a while—I'd have to brace myself against the counter to keep from running. Policemen always frightened me when I was young, and besides I was afraid I'd lose my license if anybody started checking up on me. And there wasn't anything else in the world I was equipped to do."
He settled back against one of the cracked pillars that fended off the sky from the Wilder tomb. "And then the funniest thing happened, the most logical thing in the world. I went bankrupt." Mr. Rebeck, having a good sense of the dramatic, paused for a moment and then went on. "I couldn't pay the rent, I couldn't pay for my stock, I couldn't pay for upkeep, I couldn't pay for electricity, and I couldn't pay the lawyer who told the court I couldn't pay for anything. When I left that court I'd have gone over the hill to the poorhouse, except that the city didn't have a poorhouse, and I didn't have the carfare."
"And you came here?" Laura had not taken her eyes from his face.
"No," said Mr. Rebeck. "Not right away. I was still young, you know, about Michael's age. I thought, Jonathan, you've got your whole life ahead of you, and you can't very well spend it living off oranges and cigarette butts. So I got a job as a clerk in a grocery because they let me sleep in the back of the store. I worked there for a couple of months and saved up some money and bought some new shirts. Then I went for a walk one night and passed the place where my store used to be. They had built a chain drugstore there. A big, clean drugstore with a counter made of green marble."
Now he did look away, clasping his hands tightly together. "And I thought," he said very softly, "how funny it all was. Because they were doing the same thing I'd been doing, only with advertising. Their signs said, 'We will make you beautiful, we will make you smell good, we will cure your kidney stones and your hemorrhoids and your bad breath and your dandruff and your bad manners. We will smooth your skin and pluck away forty pounds as if we were removing a wart—which we also do very well—and people will want to talk to you. Come unto us, all ye that are ugly and ill-tempered and alone—' " He paused. "It's wrong to promise magic to people. It was wrong when I did it, and it was wrong for this clean new drugstore. I walked a long way that night, thinking many philosophic thoughts which, fortunately, I don't remember." He laughed shortly and fell silent.
"And then?" Michael's voice jerked Mr. Rebeck's head around sharply, as if there had been a string between them.
"Then," Mr. Rebeck answered calmly, "I got drunk enough for a wedding and a wake put together and I wandered in here, singing to myself—they just latched the gate in those days—and I fell asleep on the top step here and slept for a day."
He shrugged. "And there you are. I stayed. At first I thought I'd just rest for a while, because I was very tired, but the raven brought me food—" He grinned suddenly. "The raven was there when I woke up, waiting for me. He told me he'd bring me food as long as I stayed, and when I asked why, he said it was because we had one thing in common. We both had delusions of kindness."
Mr. Rebeck yawned. "I'm tired," he said, almost apologetically, "and I want to go to bed." He stood up and stretched, and the bathrobe tightened around his thin body.
"I told you death was like life, Michael," he said sleepily. "It doesn't make very much difference whether you fight or not." He turned to Laura. "Except to you. Each man's death is his own concern, and whether he sleeps or doesn't sleep is of less importance than how he accepts it—or how he rationalizes it." He walked slowly to the mausoleum door and turned. "Good night."
"Good night," they said. "Good night."
He closed the door, took off his robe, and lay down on a mattress made largely out of small cushions arranged in a pattern that kept him reasonably comfortable. He pulled a blanket over himself and lay quietly on his back, staring at the ceiling.
Someone spoke his name, and he realized that Michael was in the room. He had wondered how long it would take Michael to realize that no physical barriers affected him now. "Yes, Michael?"
"Would you do me a favor?"
"Probably. What is it?"
Michael's voice was hesitant. "Could you tell me—could you tell me how this girl looks?"